Method of making figured fabrics



Jan. 16, 1940. H. J. CARRAGHER mmnon OF MAKING FIGURED msrucs Filed March 12, 1938 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Patented Jan. 16, 1940 v PATENT OFFICE M gration or M A KING FIG URED FABRICS Hugh 1. Carragher, Brooklyn, Connl, as'signor to P ewdrell & Alexander, I'nc., Da'nielson, Conn, i acorporation ofMassachusetts' 1 I: newsfl s 12, 1938, steam. 195,428

2 Claims. (Cl. v a- 391 {the invention relates to figured fabrics, 1 and in pfl ticular to curtains, draperies, and. other ornamentaljfabrics and method of making thesame, in. which figures'stripes, bands and other-decora- ,tions are formed so as to. have a cut pile, fringe, Horjbeard capableof standing up out of the plane Iofv'thefabric. v In accordance with one basic principle of the invention, thiskpilevis attained, by passing the lo figure yarns through. the fabric from one face to the otherthereof at. a location'that is removed the point atlwhich the respective figure yarns are bound .into the fabric by a distance ."equalling the length of pile desired, and therell afterfioatingfthe figureyarhs idly along the M fabric until again'wanted. totform another figure pile. Then when the surface bearing. these un- Wwa nted floats is subjected to shearing in a sub- .sequentoperation,,suchfloats will be clipped off m clo'se lto the fabric, and thesubse quent pulling and stretching ofwthe fabric, in further processing the same, or albrushingor napping process purposelyadministered, pulls the clipped ends of the figure yarns through the fabricv to form the de- M sired pile,.fringe,or beard. Y.

. This method permits the determination of the length of the pile with. the ,greatestlexactness, and makes possible the making of such decorated jfabrics through the .use of standard v machines 3o widely available. The methodisvequally applicabl'e tothefbrmirig offl figuresdecorated with then again passed through the back of the fabric Y pile. or fringe from either warporweftyarns.

other, features of theinvention. are as will be made plain hereinafter. v as} An illustrative embodiment of,the invention issshown invithanaccompanying drawings, in v fabric madeaccording to the invention, showing a, continuous warp figured chenille-like fringes or figuresextendlngweftwise,

-Fig.--2 is a schematic drawing of a small portionofthe face; r the-fabric of Fig. 1.

i Fig. 3 is a view in section on ,line3--3 of Fig. 2.

at. V Fig. 41s a view in section .on line 4-4 of Fig. 1. cFig. 5.is a schematic drawing showing the construction of a weit;figuredmarquisette curtain f a bric .in which smallwisolated fringed figures occur at spacedintervals 'warpwise and weftwise a1: .50 of the material.

iqIn Fi gs. 1 120.4, the invention is shown as apcurtain materials inwhich the figures are made figure. a ain'boun'd into the ground by. means .of the i Fig.1 is affaceviewof aimarquisette curtain r Fig. .6 is a view in section on line 6-6 of Fig. 5.

plied to the making. of pile-figured marquisette thatis required to weave it. In making this fabric,- which is shown face up, the standard warps l and doup warps]. are or may be interwoven with the ground wefts 3 in unchanging manner throughout the entire piece, except that it may be desirable to double the weft within the figure, asshown, to hold the figure yarns securely in a fabric as loosely woven as marquisette. The

. the particular pattern here shown, merely requires the suspending. of the take-up motion .of the loomoon predetermined picks; each pick of I the pair within a single stitch on the leno-iis woven reversely toiits associated pick with the figure warps 4, to grip them tightly.

Thefigure warps 4 are floated over the face -ofthe fabric asindicated at 6, B, as they approach and leave the place 5 where the doubled wefts :bind them into the figure, and are then simply passed through the fabric to float again at the back thereof, as. indicated at 1, 1, until brought back through the fabric to the face thereof to, form the face floats 6 of the next At theend of such face floats 6, they are doubled wefts. at 5. thereafterbeing floated as before to produce the desired length of pile, and

inform the floats which are to be shorn off, this process being repeated as often as desired to form the particular sequence of figures sought.

The fabric as thus woven is then subjected to the action. .of a warp cutting machine whose knives part the warp floats 1 at the back of the fabric at randomv intervals.- so that they will stand .up'and be engaged by the shearing blade of; the ordinary, shearing machine. which will clip oil the ,remaining portions of these floats flush with theback surface of the fabric, en-

abling their cut ends to pull through the fabric tosta-nd free at the face thereof. It is possible to shear thefioats to precisely uniform length when shearing them close to the surface, as such surfaceactsas a gauge to limit the extent of the cut, and thus exact uniformity of length of the fringe made by pulling the cut ends through the fabric isattained.

t will be obvious that the figures thus formed may extend continuously weftwise of the fabric from selvage to selvage, or may be spaced apart 'weftwise to produce isolated figures, or may be -f.lg.ure warps 4 can be inserted in any quantity,

fabrics, as indicated in Figs. and 6.

case of the figure warps just described, the fi u e arranged in continuous or isolated diagonal relation, or in isolated warpwise series; also, curvilinear figures, such as fringed dots, tufts, wreaths, tassels, fringed garlands, or undulating lines may be produced in any direction. Wherever the doubled wefts as indicated at 5 are not concealed by the resulting figure, as between disjoined dots, one of the wefts of each pair may be floated at the back of the fabric where not employed in binding in the figure warps, so that it may be shorn ofi subsequently to avoidany change in the uniform appearance of the marquisette ground.

The invention principles may likewise be utilized to produce fringed or cut-pile weftfigured wefts III are bound into the figure for the same or varying distances by means of the leno and j standard warps passing through the figure, as indicated at l2, then floated overthe face of the fabric at each side of such place of bindingin for the distance necessary to produce the desired length of pile or fringe, as shown at M, then simply passed through the fabric to the back thereof and floated beneath the fabric, as throughout the interval l6, until again brought through to the face to form the pile float at one side of the next adjacent figure. The wefts II] are thereupon again bound to the ground for a sufficient distance, floated again at the surface, and then passed to the back of the fabric, and so on as required to form the desired pattern. The subsequent shearing operation performed on the back of the fabric removes the floats at such surface, freeing one end of each face float to pull through the fabric as the latter is'stretched widthwise in subsequent processes. As in the case of the warp-figured fabric, the equipment required is simple and commonly available, since the fabric can be woven on a 2 x 1 loom equipped with a dobby or equivalent harness motion.

In this manner figures extending continuously in warpwise or diagonal directions can be produced, or the figures may be spacedapart both warpwise or weftwise as in the case of the material shown in Figs. 5 and 6; also curvilinear figures, such as tufts, fringed dots, wreaths, garlands, or undulating lines may be produced in any direction, just as in the case of the warp figured fabric described herein. Also, in the case of either type of fabric, fiat figures of substantial extent can be given fringed or bearded margins.

A further feature of the invention has to do with an improved method of freeing or fluffing out the free ends of the face floats forming the fringe so as to give the figures a soft, fuzzy and lofty pile which is rendered decidedly coherent by reason of the matting together of the component fibers. For this purpose, I'prefer to subject thefabric after shearing to a very strong caustic shrinking bath. I have discovered that this shrinking bath causes the twist to disappear from the ends of the figure warps or wefts which have been freed by the shearing operation and the handling incident to putting the fabric through theshrinking bath, with the result that they unstrand and break down into their individual fibers. Thus each end becomes a tiny bundle of flaring free fibers, at liberty to interengage and mat together with adjacent similar fibers. Where the width of the area where the figure wefts are bound into the ground is kept small enough with respect to the length of the As in the free ends, the fibers from opposite sides of the same figure will mat into a single very lofty row of pile which completely hides the area of union of the figure yarns with the ground. Continuous lines of high-pile figures practically identi-' 5 cal in appearance with the pile decoration characteristic of chenille bedspreads can thus be most inexpensively formed, so as to produce cur-,

tains, chair covers, and otherv articles harmonizing closely with such widely used bed coverings. 10

Or disjoined and isolated tufts may be distributed over the surface of the curtain material to reproduce almost identically the appearance of the well-known candlewick bedspreads.

I have found that other processes analogous to the caustic'shrinkage bath, for example such as are contemplated under the names of acid mercerizing, Permatex process, and others will also serve to take the twist out of the cut ends of figure yarn, to permit their component fibers to spread. Since these baths are not employed for the conventional mercerizing purpose of rendering the fibers parallel in the-twistedeyarns comprising'the ground, but for the sake of their action in untwisting the cut ends of the figure yarns, the customary holding or stretching of the ground fabric, essential to parallelize the fibers in ordinarymercerizing, is unnecessary and can be omitted. In fact, the holding or stretching has unfavorable results in many fabrics, as it'' is found that the customary widthwise stretching tends to spread apart and open up the figures, destroying thedesired matted-together relation of the individual fibers forming the pile of the figure, and through thus making the pile discontinuous tends to spoil the chenille-like appearance sought.

Under certain circumstances, it is possible or desirable to amplify or replace the action of the shrinkage bath in setting free or untwisting the fibers of the cut ends of the figure yarns, by the use of brushes, nap-raising devices, card-clothing, or other mechanical brushing, combing or tuft-raising means.

The principles of 'the present inventionHmaybe utilized in conjunction with the weave of my prior Patent No. 1,992,604, granted Feb, 26, 1935, where it is desired to produce a figure attached to the ground over an area greater than will be concealed by the frayed-outfreed ends of figure yarns, but where the ground warps and wefts are desired to be concealedas completely as possible within such area bymeans of thefigure wefts.

As is obvious, it is possible to work both figure without departing from the scope of the inven-" flli tion as expressed in the claims. Therefore, I do not wish tov be limited to the particular forms shown, or to the details of construction thereof, but

What I do claim is: 1. A methodof making figured fabric which includes the steps of interweaving figure warps with the ground wefts of the fabric, floating the figure warps over the face of the fabric fora distance at both sides of the location of such iii-" 16,.

terweaving, passing the figure warps through the fabric without interweaving at the ends of such floats, floating such figure warps over the back of the fabric until again passed through to the face to form the face floats, cutting the back floats, and causing the cut ends of the figure warps to pull through the fabric to the face thereof.

2. A method of making figured fabric which includes the steps of interweaving figure Wefts with the ground warps of the fabric, floating the HUGH J. CARRAGHER. 

